10 More Best Horror Movies About Hell
1. Häxan
Swedish movie Häxan was first released in the US in 1968, under the name Witchcraft Through the Ages. However, it had been around for a long time before that, as it was first completed way back in 1922.
The work of Danish filmmaker and actor Benjamin Christensen, Häxan (which means “The Witch”) is an exploration of the way witchcraft and its supposed practitioners have been treated throughout history. It has no dialogue and was intended to be accompanied by a live orchestra to illustrate its points.
If you don’t happen to have a spare orchestra lying around, YouTube will suffice.
Part of Häxan’s story takes viewers into Hell itself, where the Devil taunts prospective witches and then punishes them once his deceit has been revealed. The visuals Christensen created for this sequence are incredible, just as raw and terrifying as today as they were to audiences back in the day.
The film was banned in several countries upon release, because this was the 1920s, when banning things was pretty popular.
Häxan is a fascinating insight into a long-forgotten era of cinema - one that still holds up over a century later.